Building cars the way we build computers.

As an end user: Can you build your own PC? You sure can. And the quality? Top notch, you can exceed performance and sometimes price if you apply yourself. Can you build your own car? You sure can. And the quality? Poor. You will never match the cost and efficiency of any car, even a Hundai Elantra. Why? That's the question poised by a good article in Wired magazine entitled: Detroit. It compares today's big three car assemblers with the IBM of the 70's. Can you imagine if you could swap the transmission of a Toyota Camry the same way you swap your video card in any PC. If we want a more efficient transmission in our cars, are large manufacturers up to the job or in their struggle to survive they put innovation in their wish-list (due to their large social responsibilities) and keep dishing out the same thing. The most poignant assertion made by the article is that true innovation happens in small scale, when the entrepreneurs risk it all for ideas larger than themselves. True visionaries with the next revolutionary concepts invariable will be bogged down by stock holders and labors unions. This "Wired" article got me split 50/50. For one part I do believe the car industry total-control manufacturing approach stifles innovation. Another part tells me that a computer crashing is a manageable/quantifiable cost to pay for an open architecture. A car crashing, well, you get the idea.